Delhi: Most Covid deaths due to heart or kidney ailments, says report

- Of the 853 Covid-19 deaths audited for this period, 779 or 91% were those who were found with co-morbidities
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Of the total number of Covid-19 deaths in the national capital audited for the period January 12-February 7, majority of these patients had co-morbid conditions such as heart diseases or kidney ailments, as per a report.
Out the 853 Covid-19 deaths audited for this period, 779 or 91% were those who were found with co-morbidities, the report on coronavirus deaths analysis stated.
The report also said that among those who died after contracting coronavirus infection, and were found suffering from co-morbid conditions, patients with heart ailments accounted for 20% of the cases, and those with kidney diseases 19%.
A senior official had earlier said, "The deaths where COVID-19 is reported in the patients are treated as coronavirus deaths. It is an established principle. We have a panel of experts and the analysis was done to see whether there was a pattern to the pneumonia that was typical of Covid, but it was found that the fatalities were among those who were end-stage patients".
More than 750 deaths due to Covid were reported in Delhi in total during the month of January.
Many medical experts and doctors who have been treating coronavirus patients since the start of the pandemic, also said that deaths in the third wave is happening largely due to co-morbid conditions of patients, and not primarily due to the Omicron variant.
"Yes, Omicron variant is highly transmissible, and had affected large number of people in this wave, but the number of hospital admissions is very less compared to the figures in the previous waves, and ICU admissions are being needed largely for patients who had one or more co-morbid conditions," said Dr Suranjit Chatterjee, a senior consultant at Apollo hospital here.
He said, any co-morbid condition worsens clinical condition of any patient, be it Covid infection or other diseases.
"The primary cause of death, among these patients was co-morbid conditions and not Omicron infection per se," Chatterjee said.
The number of daily cases and deaths due to Covid have also decreased in the last several days.
Meanwhile, Delhi witnessed a marginal rise in COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours with the national capital reporting 1,317 new infections on Wednesday.
As per the health bulletin issued by the Delhi Health Department, the active cases in the national capital were 6,304, while the positivity rate was reported to be 2.11 per cent.
A total of 62,556 samples were tested for the COVID virus during the last 24 hours, of which 52,168 were RT-PCR.
As many as 1,908 patients have recovered from the virus in the last 24 hours, while 13 succumbed to COVID. With this, the cumulative recoveries in Delhi stand at 18,15,188 and the COVID death toll at 26,023.
During the last 24 hours, a total of 97,260 COVID vaccination doses were administered in the national capital, of which 40,432 were administered to the 15-18 age group and 7,562 as precaution doses.
With agency inputs
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